House Bill 315 was recently introduced in the
Illinois House of Representatives by Representative Daniel Burke (D-Chicago).
The bill creates the Illinois Public Health and Safety Animal Population
Control Act. It requires the Department of Public Health to develop and
administer a program of reimbursements to veterinarians for the sterilization
and rabies vaccination of dogs and cats of low-income owners and feral
cat colony caretakers. The program would be funded through a voluntary
individual income tax checkoff and a $3 fee on each rabies vaccination
required by the Animal Control Act. Click here to see the entire bill text.

The ISVMA is
opposed to House Bill 315. We need every ISVMA member veterinarian to contact
their state representative and state senator to explain our opposition.
Please contact the legislators that represent the district you live in and
the district where your veterinary practice is located. Click here to find out
who your legislators are and how to contact them.

Illinois veterinarians are
committed to efforts to reduce the number of unwanted and abandoned animals
in Illinois and to advance the well-being of animals and the public. All
across the state, veterinarians participate in existing programs to provide low-cost
spays/neuters, promote animal adoption, and encourage responsible pet
ownership that includes appropriate vaccination, preventative health
maintenance.

House Bill 315 has a laudable goal
of trying to reduce the number of unwanted animals in the State and Illinois
veterinarians support this goal. However,
ISVMA has very serious concerns about how the proponents attempt to achieve
the objective:

House Bill 315
increases the tax on rabies vaccinations $3 per year, placing an unfair
tax burden on responsible pet owners who properly vaccinate their animals. This additional
tax on rabies vaccinations is a further disincentive for people to vaccinate
pets against a dangerous and deadly
disease. In many cases, the existing taxes imposed by local and county
governments already exceed the cost of the vaccine.

During the
past year, Illinois experienced a significant increase in the diagnosis
of bat rabies. Skunk rabies was recently diagnosed in two domestic
animals in north-central Illinois (a cow and a horse). Raccoon rabies is
also rapidly spreading west toward Illinois. Illinois veterinarians and public
health officials are concerned about the convergence of these
three separate strains of rabies in Illinois at a time when rabies
vaccination compliance in the state is less than 50%. Any government
program that relies upon funds generated by an increase in the tax on
rabies vaccination is dangerous public policy.

Any program
aimed at reducing the stray population in Illinois must include a public
relations campaign to educate pet owners about the benefits of spay / neuter
because lack of education is the greatest barrier to population control. The ISVMA supports alternate funding proposals
that would equitably generate funds to provide responsible pet ownership
education and promote effective population control programs.

Please call your legislators to
relate the ISVMA position on House Bill 315. Once you have made your call,
please e-mail or fax ISVMA to let us know which legislators you spoke to and
what, if anything, you learned from your conversation that will assist us in
our effort to find a more appropriate solution to pet overpopulation.

Would the responsible pet owners that bring their
animals into your practice support an additional state tax on the rabies
vaccine? If you think they might have a position on the issue, ISVMA had
prepared a notice that you may choose to post in your lobby.

The white-collared seedeater (Sporophila
torqueola), is a very small, black and white finch about 4 inches in total
length. Although the White-collared Seedeater was once fairly common in
southern Texas, it has become increasingly rare in recent decades. The
species has a distribution from western Panama to the Rio Grande valley of
Texas (American Ornithologists' Union 1998). Sporophila torqueola sharpei
occurs from the Rio Grande of Texas, south along the coastal plain of
northeastern Mexico to northern Veracruz, and west to eastern Nuevo Leon and
San Luis Potosi (American Ornithologists' Union 1957).

A highly variable species, its plumages appear
quite different in different parts of its range. Breeding males in Texas are
olive-brown above, un-streaked and buffy below; the head is blackish with a
white crescent below eye; it has an incomplete buffy collar on hindneck; the
wings are dark with two white wing bars and it has a white patch at base of
flight feathers. Female and immatures are paler and buffier overall, lack the
cap and collar; and the wing bars are buffy.

I photographed this male White-collared Seedeater
in San Ygnacio, Texas in January 2005.

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